FINANCIAL SERVICES:
Receiving Deadline: June 30, 2006
Goods or services that were ordered via purchase order and received on or before June 30, 2006 will be charged to FY 2006. Please note, if a department receives merchandise directly in its office, it is responsible for notifying the Receiving Department. If the department fails to notify the Receiving Department, the goods may be charged to the incorrect fiscal year. Items received on or after July 1, 2006, will be charged to FY 2007. If you have questions, please contact the FRS Team at x4-2188.
Accounts Payable Deadline: June 30, 2006
All Accounts Payable invoices (including purchase order invoices) and Miscellaneous Expense Vouchers must be approved, signed, properly coded and received in Accounts Payable no later than June 30, 2006. Purchase order costs will automatically be accrued against FY 2006 if the merchandise is received on or before June 30, 2006. If you have questions, please contact Accounts Payable at x4-3143.
Business Travel/Working Fund Deadline: June 30, 2006
Travel expense vouchers received with appropriate documentation and approvals by June 30, 2006 will be charged to your FY 2006 budget. Travel expense vouchers received past June 30, 2006 will be charged to FY 2007 regardless of the trip dates. All travel that occurs in FY 2007 will be charged to FY 2007 even if the travel advance for the trip was received in FY2 006.
Working Fund general advances will be charged to FY 2006 as long as the associated Miscellaneous Expense Voucher is received with appropriate documentation and approvals by June 30, 2006. If you have questions, please contact Working Fund at x4-5122.
Interdepartmental Invoice & Transmittal/Chargeback Deadline: June 23, 2006
Financial Services must receive all interdepartmental invoices and transmittals/chargebacks for interdepartmental charges no later than June 23, 2006 for processing against your FY 2006 budget. Any interdepartmental invoices or transmittals/chargebacks received after June 23, 2006 will be charged against FY 2007. Please remember, when you receive an interdepartmental invoice from another department, it is your responsibility to sign and forward it on to Financial Services within five business days. If you have any questions, please contact the FRS Team at x4-2188.
FRS Transaction Submission System Deadline: June 23, 2006
Departments that utilize the automated FRS Transaction Submission System must have their submissions sent to Financial Services by 5 p.m. on June 23, 2006.
Accruals of Regular and Contractual Payroll:
– Regular Payroll
** The entire Regular payroll for pay period ending 06/20/06 with a
pay date of 06/28/06 will be charged to FY 2006.
** Since the next Regular payroll (PPE 7/04/06) spans both FY 2006 and FY 2007, an accrual entry will be made to charge your budget in FY 2006 for 10 days. This 10-day accrual entry is based on the last full payroll of FY 2006 (06/20/06). The accrual entry will be reversed in FY 2007, which will place a credit on your budget. The entire Regular payroll for pay period ending 7/4/06 will be charged to FY 2007.
– Contractual Payroll
** All of the Contractual payroll (PPE 7/07/06) for pay period ending 06/23/06, with a check date of 07/05/06, will be charged to FY 2006.
** Since the next contractual payroll spans both FY 2006 and FY 2007, an accrual entry will be made to charge your budget in FY 2006 for 7 days. This 7-day accrual entry is based on the last full payroll of FY06 (06/23/06). The accrual entry will be reversed in FY 2007, which will place a credit on your budget. The entire Contractual payroll for pay period ending 7/7/06 will be charged to FY 2007.
If you have any questions, please contact the FRS Team at x4-2188.
Closing/Deleting FRS Accounts:
Please review the accounts under your responsibility. If any accounts are no longer needed, please notify the FRS Team via e-mail at {FRSTEAM@towson.edu}. The e-mail must come from the responsible person listed on the account and should contain the account number, account name and the effective date of the deletion.
Inventory and Prepaid Supplies:
Inventory: Inventory needs to be counted as of June 30, 2006 and submitted to Financial Services by July 7, 2006. Individual e-mails will be sent by Kim Tremper (x4-2218) to the responsible people to remind them of this process.
Prepaid Supplies: If your department has purchased supplies, materials, or services prior to June 30, 2006, but will not be using them until July 1, 2006 or later, these items are FY2007 Prepaid Supplies and must be counted and valued on June 30,2006 and then sent to the Accounting Office in Financial Services.
If you have questions or if you need assistance with the specifics related to your area, please contact Erna Kesler (x4-5012) or Cathy Mattern (x4-5563).
Open Commitments:
Open commitments (also referred to as ?encumbrances?), reserve funds from your budget for specific goods or services acquired via purchase order.
Normally, open commitments begin with a purchase requisition charged against your budget. The document number you will see in FRS or your monthly reports will start with an ?R? or a ?T? (Office of Technology Services (OTS) ? formerly CANS – requisition). Once a vendor has been selected, the requisition is converted to a Purchase Order. For the majority of departments, the document numbers recorded in FRS will start with ?C? for commodity purchase orders and ?S? for service purchase orders.
It is important to review the open commitments charged against your budget on a regular basis. Funds reserved for specific purchase order commitments cannot be used for any other purpose.
Open Commitment Review:
All purchase orders for goods or services that have not been received by June 30, 2006 or approved for obligation against FY 2006, will roll over and post to the FY 2007 budget.
Please identify and review the open commitments on a regular basis. Because money is set aside for these specific purchases, this money cannot be used for anything else. If you need help reviewing your open commitments, please contact the FRS Team at x4-2188.
Open Commitment questions you should ask yourself and act upon:
– Do I have any open commitments on my budget(s)?
– Are they current?
– If they are current, do I anticipate receiving the goods or services by 6/30/06?
– If I don?t anticipate receiving the goods or services by 6/30/06, can they be obligated?
– Do I have open commitments on my budget that haven?t had activity in two or more months? If yes, look into them further.
– Does the commitment still belong on the account? Has the service contract expired? Do you no longer need the current contract?
– Have you been waiting on an order?
– Is it taking a long time? If yes, notify the Procurement Department immediately of the vendor?s failure to deliver, and include all attempts to obtain the goods or services. Maintain written records of correspondence, telephone conversations, e-mails, etc. Document all inquiries made to the vendor.
Obligations:
The State of Maryland allows certain contracts (purchase orders) to be charged against the closing year budget even though goods or services have not been received by June 30, 2006. This process is called obligating funds and enables you to charge related invoices in future years to this prior year?s funding. Financial Services, using State guidelines, must evaluate obligation requests and identify a firm list by July 1, 2006. Please send your requests to Financial Services by June 12, 2006 and continue to evaluate their progress through the end of the fiscal year. The criteria for obligations are as follows:
Criteria for Obligations:
Purchase must be:
* A Purchase Order by June 30, 2006 (see Procurement Deadlines for requisition deadlines)
* Over $500
* Classified into one of these categories:
Object 03-Communications Equipment Contracts only
Object 07-Motor Vehicle Purchase Contracts only
Object 08-Printing (3718) and other non-routine services only
Object 10-Equipment Replacement
Object 11-Equipment Additional
Object 14-Land & Structures
FRS subcodes associated with these objects can be found at:
{http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/fiscalplanning/financialservices/}
Obligating is an option, and the only way to draw on prior year funds after a budget year is closed is through the obligation process. If the aforementioned criteria have been met, please work with your Divisional Budget Officer (DBO) to submit a list of requested obligations to Financial Services. Please begin early.
Requests for obligations must be submitted in e-mail or in writing and must include the FRS account number, the Purchase Order number, the amount and a name and phone number for contact. If you have questions about obligations, please contact Mardette Wetzelberger at x4-5275.
PROCUREMENT:
ProCard-VISA Deadline: June 16, 2006
The Procurement Department suggests completing all of your FY 2006 VISA procurement card purchases by June 16, 2006. Provided the vendor submits the VISA charges to US Bank by June 25, 2006 the charges will post against your FY 2006 budget. Any purchases not processed by the vendor and US Bank by June 25, 2006 will post to the FY 2007 budget. If you have questions, please contact Ellie Watts at x4-2347 or Procurement at x4-3492.
Procurement Requisition Deadlines:
Please submit all requisitions for FY 2006 funding as soon as possible, particularly if your purchase will require a competitive procurement, (i.e., Request for Bid (RFB) or Request for Proposal (RFP)) for a new contract or purchase order, as opposed to a contract renewal.
If you are working with Procurement to purchase goods or services from a blanket/master agreement, the deadlines may not apply. To confirm applicability of these guidelines, contact Procurement prior to the dates listed below.
Requisitions submitted after the published deadlines that have not been reviewed in advance by the Procurement Department will be processed for FY 2007.
Please note that circumstances beyond the university?s control may prevent successful completion of the procurement process and may jeopardize the use of funds within the requested fiscal year. These circumstances include not only extended lead times for certain items, but also unexpected changes to published specifications, and bid protests. Even after bids are successfully opened, the University may be unable to resolve contract terms and conditions with vendors; therefore, allow as much time as possible for completion of FY 2007 purchases.
Requisitions for goods or services and associated deadlines:
> $100,000: April 7, 2006
$25,000 – $100,000: April 28, 2006
$5,000 – $25,000: May 24, 2006
$0 – $5,000 (if PO required): June 8, 2006
If you have contracts that must be renewed by July 1, 2006, Procurement has already issued an e-mail renewal notice. Please review your current contracts to make sure that they remain in good standing, and if you have not received a notice, contact the buyer of record (noted on the purchase order) as soon as possible regarding contract status.
Requisitions are required for all renewals. Remember, a contract not renewed in a timely manner is expired, and becomes a ?dead? contract that cannot be used again.
BUDGET OFFICE:
University Budget Office Deadline: June 23, 2006
The University Budget Office deadline is June 23, 2006. All transfer requests and any requests to transfer appropriation between accounts for FY 2006 must be received by June 23, 2006. Questions can be directed to Deanna Martinez at x4-4825.
Budget Transfers:
The Budget Office will continue to require departments to properly maintain their respective accounts by budget pool. This activity is necessary to properly manage the university budget, as well as individual accounts. The Budget Office uses this data to balance the current budget, to determine whether an amendment is needed, and to prepare the next fiscal year?s budget request. Accurate and timely account management is critical and also helps the department avoid any delays in the approval process, which is crucial at the end of a fiscal year.
After the May month-end closeout, scheduled for June 2, 2006, the Budget Office will concentrate its efforts on each account?s ?bottom-line? only. While it is important to budget at the object/pool level as the year progresses, adjusting budgeted spending authority between specific budget pools during the last month of the fiscal year is neither cost effective nor beneficial to the university?s efforts to accurately forecast its spending plan during the year.
In June, the Budget Office will only process transfers between accounts. All transfer requests are due no later than June 23, 2006. Questions should be directed to Deanna Martinez at x4-4825 or {dmartinez@towson.edu}.
Self-Support ?Minimum 1% Fund Balance? Requirement:
All self-support accounts are subject to the USM mandatory policy of retaining 1% of current revenues to build reserves and improve ?debt to asset? ratios. Remember: the account holder is responsible for fulfilling this mandate. The Budget Office collects the 1% quarterly, based on actual revenue. Account holders are responsible for reviewing their accounts to make sure they are within their spending limits.
Divisional Business Officers should make sure their divisions are meeting revenue expectations and not exceeding spending authority, so that they are covering the 1%. Any departmental variation should have prior approval and must be covered within the division?s overall total.
There are Auxiliary Enterprise accounts that are expected to exceed the 1% Fund Balance Requirement.
